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Habitats Regulations Assessment for Oxfordshire Minerals Planning Strategy

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Habitats Regulations Assessment for Oxfordshire Minerals Planning Strategy Habitats Regulations Assessment for Oxfordshire Minerals Planning Strategy Technical Supplement Prepared for Oxfordshire County Council by Land Use Consultants and Maslen Environmental January 2012 www.landuse.co.uk LUC SERVICES Environmental Planning Landscape Design Landscape Management Masterplanning Landscape Planning Ecology Environmental Assessment Rural Futures Digital Design Urban Regeneration Urban Design 43 Chalton Street 37 Otago Street London NW1 1JD Glasgow G12 8JJ Tel: 020 7383 5784 Tel: 0141 334 9595 Fax: 020 7383 4798 Fax: 0141 334 7789 [email protected] [email protected] 14 Great George Street 28 Stafford Street Bristol BS1 5RH Edinburgh EH3 7BD Tel: 0117 929 1997 Tel: 0131 202 1616 Fax: 0117 929 1998 [email protected] [email protected] DOCUMENT CONTROL SHEET Version Status: Version Details: Prepared by: Checked Approved by: by: Ver: Date: Principal 1 2/12/2011 Initial draft conclusions of Sam Bishop (Maslen) Taran Jeremy Owen re-screening Jon Whitmore (Maslen) Livingston Taran Livingston (LUC) David Green (LUC) 2 19/12/2011 Final draft of HRA Report Sam Bishop (Maslen) Taran Jeremy Owen Jon Whitmore (Maslen) Livingston Taran Livingston (LUC) David Green (LUC) 3 06/01/2012 Final HRA Report Sam Bishop (Maslen) Taran Jeremy Owen Jon Whitmore (Maslen) Livingston Taran Livingston (LUC) David Green (LUC) CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 3 Oxfordshire Minerals and Waste Core Strategy ........................................................ 3 Habitats Regulations Assessment work undertaken to date ........................................ 3 HRA work required ................................................................................................ 4 Structure of Report ................................................................................................ 6 2 METHOD 7 Research questions ................................................................................................. 7 Review of Existing Information ................................................................................. 8 Hydrogeological Assessment ................................................................................... 8 Revised Screening ................................................................................................. 10 Appropriate Assessment ....................................................................................... 12 3 HYDROGEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT 13 Cothill Fen SAC .................................................................................................... 13 Oxford Meadows SAC .......................................................................................... 22 Conclusions from Hydrogeological Assessment ....................................................... 33 4 REVISED SCREENING FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 35 Cothill Fen SAC .................................................................................................... 35 Oxford Meadows SAC .......................................................................................... 36 Revised Screening conclusions ............................................................................... 40 5 PRELIMINARY APPROPRIATE ASSESSMENT 51 6 CONCLUSIONS 55 Cothill Fen SAC .................................................................................................... 55 Oxford Meadows SAC .......................................................................................... 56 REFERENCES 59 GLOSSARY OF TERMS 61 i TABLES Table 1.1: Stages in HRA ................................................................................................................................ 5 Table 2.1: Approach to identifying nominated minerals sites which may impact on the SACs ............... 12 Table 3.1: Cothill Fen Regional Stratigraphy ................................................................................................ 14 Table 3.2: Borehole Log for Borehole at Parsonage Moor (BGS ref SU49NE138; NGR 446150; 199870) .................................................................................................................................................. 15 Table 3.3: Hydraulic Connectivity Between Nominated Mineral Sites and Cothill Fen SAC .................. 22 Table 3.4: Oxford Meadows Regional Stratigraphy ..................................................................................... 24 Table 3.5: Hydraulic Connectivity Between Nominated Mineral Sites and Oxford Meadows ................ 30 Table 4.1: Revised Screening Matrix ............................................................................................................ 43 Table 5.1: Preliminary Appropriate Assessment Matrix for the four nominated sites with hydraulic connectivity to Oxford Meadows SAC............................................................................................... 53 Table B.1: Hydrogeological Calculations (see text for discussion) ............................................................ 64 FIGURES Figure 3.1: Cothill Fen SAC Conceptual Site Model (schematic and not to scale) Figure 3.2: Oxford Meadows SAC Conceptual Site Model (schematic and not to scale) APPENDICES Appendix A: Maps Map 1 Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), Draft Minerals Strategy Areas and Assessed Site Nominations within 5km Map 2 Surface Water and Groundwater Catchments of Cothill Fen and Assessed Site Nominations within 5 km of the SAC Map 3: Oxford Meadows Special Area of Conservation (SAC), Surface Water Features and Site Nominations within 5 km of the SAC Map 4 Oxford Meadows SAC Hydraulic Boundaries Map 5 Oxford Meadows SG-04, 05, 16 – SAC Spatial Connection Map 6 Oxford Meadows SAC SG20a – SAC Spatial Connection Map 7 Bedrock of Cothill Fen and surrounding area Map 8 Superifical deposits of Cothill Fen and surounding area Map 9 Bedrock of Cothill Fen and surrounding area Map 10 Superficial deposits of Oxford Meadows and surrounding area Map 11 Location of plans/projects with potential for in-combination effects on Oxford Meadows SAC Appendix B: Dewatering Calculations ii 1 Introduction OXFORDSHIRE MINERALS AND WASTE CORE STRATEGY 1.1 Oxfordshire County Council is preparing its Minerals and Waste Core Strategy, to replace the Minerals and Waste Local Plan. The Core Strategy includes the planning strategy for minerals extraction and waste development, which comprises a vision, objectives, policies and preferred spatial strategy for minerals extraction and waste development, as well as nine common core policies for both minerals and waste. 1.2 Consultation on the draft Minerals Planning Strategy to 2030 ended on the 31st October 2011. The consultation document included the preferred spatial strategy and policies for sand and gravel, soft sand and crushed rock extraction. Five areas have been identified for sand and gravel extraction, three for soft sand extraction and three for crushed rock extraction. Within these areas specific sites have been nominated for inclusion as allocated mineral extraction sites in the Site Allocations DPD. HABITATS REGULATIONS ASSESSMENT WORK UNDERTAKEN TO DATE 1.3 Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) Screening work for the Minerals Core Strategy was undertaken by the Council with a Screening Report issued to Natural England in February 2011. The February 2011 Screening Report describes the purpose of HRA and the tasks involved in the HRA process. The report identified the Natura 2000 sites in Oxfordshire that could be affected (there are seven Special Areas of Conservation (SACs)), the reasons for their designations, conservation objectives and likely impacts from mineral workings and waste management both alone and in combination. 1.4 The initial HRA Screening report concluded that there would be no likely impact from mineral working on six of the SACs within Oxfordshire (Hartslock Wood, Hackpen Hill, Little Wittenham, Chiltern Beechwoods, Aston Rowant or Cothill Fen). However, it could not rule out likely significant effects on Oxford Meadows SAC from mineral extraction within the Eynsham/Cassington/Yarnton area. 1.5 Natural England provided a number of comments on this report, requiring amendments to the conservation objectives, a request for more information about the potential hydrological impacts of mineral working on Oxford Meadows and Cothill Fen SACs and a request that the Council identified the site nominations it believes are unlikely to have an impact on Oxford Meadows SAC, and provide evidence on the lack of hydrological pathway to support screening out these site nominations. 1.6 The Council submitted a revised HRA Screening Report in August 2011 seeking to respond to Natural England’s comments. This report also included the screening assessment for the waste planning strategy options that had been prepared by this stage. The revised Screening Report concluded that Land Use Consultants and Maslen Environmental 3 “…using the source-pathway-receptor screening assessment, and taking into account the other plans and policies which are relevant to this assessment, … mineral extraction from some of the site options within the Eynsham/Cassington/Yarnton area could impact on the conservation objectives of Oxford Meadows SAC through a hydrological pathway…” but that “…No other areas included in the preferred strategy for minerals extraction are likely to have impacts on the SACs in Oxfordshire…”. 1.7 It also noted in relation to the waste planning strategy that a proposal for a residual treatment plant in the Abingdon/Didcot /Wantage/Grove area, if located within 10km of
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